Today I went exploring in the other direction. I took a path by the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences and came out looking over the river, with a marvellous view of the city on the other bank and people skiing and tobogganing to my left on the Sparrow Hills. I climbed down and walked along the embankment path then did a big circle home. It was a lovely day and I enjoyed all the space and fresh air.
Father Nikon came round, looking thin and handsome, not having eaten for two and a half days, because he has absolutely no money. He has had it with here and applied for refugee status in Argentina, because he saw on TV that they’d opened a quota. I fed him for two and a half hours and enjoyed his visit.
The church where the Quakers now meet is right in the middle of the zone where people were demonstrating to mark the old USSR Armed Forces Day, so was cordoned off by rows of militia. Sasha Lukin climbed over a back fence to get in, and the rest of us talked our way through. Good meeting. A new man with a starved and tortured face, who I assumed was from the Russian provinces, turned out to be from California.
Afterwards I went through the underpass to the Rossiya Hotel to change money. The sound of a saxophone was wafting through the darkness, and on the other side of the street Russian flags were decorating the lamp posts every few yards and the Kremlin was illuminated from below. The atmosphere was charged because of the demonstration. For the fifth day running there were no roubles to be had at the exchange kiosk. This is getting alarming as I’m down to my last 50 and have a lot of Amnesty expenses to meet.
Monday 24 February
I saw the Armenian ambassador today to ask for their death penalty statistics for London, and in the afternoon trudged back and forwards between the Central Prefektura and PREO, where I learned that before I get their seal I must get certificates from the gas and electricity boards, the fire inspectorate and the health and safety people.
But I was mentally elsewhere all day. I feel very dissatisfied with the stress I continually put myself under and the ridiculous business of doing work till 11.00pm. I read a Buddhist book on breathing and mindfulness in the evening, which was marvellous, and also wrote half my next radio programme.
Half the schizophrenics in Moscow seemed to call me tonight. Someone pointed out it was the full moon.
Tuesday 25 February
A beautiful day with hard snow underfoot. I began my trail of the fire inspectorate etc., and a good thing for the Buddhist book, because I kept calm and plodded on for eight hours, and quite enjoyed the different bureaucrats I met. With a sinking heart I discovered that before I started, I first had to go back to the Fund for Non-Dwelling Premises at Krasnopresnensky, to get three stamped letters. Their building is now quite transformed: it has a snazzy perspex stall in the lobby, and paratroopers in skin-tight jumpsuits defending the place at every corner.
From there I went to Tchaikovsky Street, past a sign saying “Danger – leaking gas”, and into the Fire Inspectorate, which is a dilapidated hole. On to the Health and Safety people at Taganka, whose building stank like a toilet and was covered all over on the outside with some kind of cladding, so they looked like they were sitting in a tent. They were nice to me, but it turns out they won’t accept letters. So I had to take mine to Dr Chirigyeva at Kuznetsky Most, in the town centre. I found her in a white coat, looking exhausted, with her dyed hair in a bandana and finger in a bandage. She reminded me of one of those exhausted, basically good doctors in The First Circle. She has to post the letter to the Taganka office, which in Moscow can take eight days.
From there I went to the Electricity Board on the embankment near the British Embassy. By this time some frozen cherries I had bought were defrosting, so I was dripping a trail of what looked like blood wherever I went. I must have walked about six miles in the course of the day. The remarkable thing was that all these offices were connected to the old Krasnopresnensky District Soviet, although they covered half the city. Presumably each district must have its own set of electricity boards and fire inspectorates. Now I have to make appointments for inspectors at all these agencies to come and look round the office.
Wednesday 26 February
A hormonally chaotic day which I spent putting together the mailing for London, not really able to settle. In the evening Andrey had invited me to a booze-up with a group of ex-prisoners and their wives. I was terribly glad to have gone, and slept soundly afterwards. They also sold me some roubles, for which I was grateful. Amnesty in action: getting money from prisoners.
Andrey Shilkov was there and told me some more about Nina Petrovna, whom he also loves. She had started a relief fund for political prisoners before Solzhenitsyn did, raising the money from among her friends. For this she had not only been sacked from the Academy of Sciences Institute where she worked, but most recently from a cleaning job in 1986. He has been recording her stories of her life because he too fears she may be on the decline.
His teeth are still missing from where he was force-fed in prison and he is deeply interested in Buddhism and in Tibet. Somehow the combination of all these things makes me feel he has a hard-won, independent view of the world that is worth listening to. In the nicest way he was sceptical about Amnesty and its group-building orientation, and I felt there was a lot there for me to understand. On the way home he clutched my hand as he said goodbye, to show no hard feelings. I don’t know on what grounds, but I feel an immense good friendship from him, Andrey, Ruslan and others. As though they like you despite, rather than because.
Thursday 27 February
I finished writing my radio programme in the morning and gave tea to Othmar and his sister, who were taking the mail. In the afternoon I learned that the Central Prefektura has lost the ground plan of our office, so I will have to go back to the Bureau of Technical Administration and get another one.
I went from there to Irina’s birthday dinner, taking a bottle of Turkmenian madeira. We had a very good time with a lot of laughter, but it also felt valedictory. Natalya Ivanovna had sewn me a napkin with rowanberries on it, and raised her glass and said they were glad I had come into their house. I said I was too. We sat and looked through their old photos. Natalya Ivanovna was like Anne Bancroft in her youth.
Last thing at night there was a very disheartening email from London, saying the delivery of office furniture has been held up.
Friday 28 February
The Fire Inspector surveyed the office today – a young, friendly guy from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, who was reeking of vodka at 11.00am.
As money is still very short, I then went to the bank to claim the roubles that the actor Peter Gale has bequeathed to me from his account. I had got his letter translated, the translation stamped by Natasha Teplitskaya, and had brought my passport and visa with me as identification – but wouldn’t you know, the transliteration of my name in the visa had a mistake in it which I had never noticed before. The bank staff pounced on it with glee.
Ninety minutes later I ended up with the manager and deputy manager, both of them young. He kept barking down the phone to people, “Well, that’s your problem. There’s a special form to follow!” SLAM! So I began thinking aloud and said to him, and to all bureaucrats all over Moscow, “You keep talking about a special form, but you never explain what it is.” The deputy manager got furious at me for this and called me “Woman!” I tapped her knee and said, “Don’t ‘woman’ me”, and so she didn’t. We all sat it out and the woman finally said she would sign my document. I congratulated her for taking the responsibility on herself, and the manager said, “No need for irony”, bouncing his fists on the desk, but I think also pretty embarrassed that he hadn’t dared to. I said I wasn’t being ironic, I was being sincere, and I was. So, I got the 1,100 roubles. I hope the rouble famine soon ends, because there are big bills to pay.